Friday, June 26, 2015

The
Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, where nine were murdered, is
located on Calhoun Street. John C. Calhoun was a staunch champion of
the succession movement that resulted in the Civil War. He stated
that slavery was not a necessary evil but “positive good.” I'm
not sure why the response to the particular murder of nine church
goers has been the removal, or attempted removal of a single, but
potent symbol--the Confederate flag--from statehouses across the
South and Walmart. It is extraordinary that this didn't happen right
after the Emancipation Proclamation. Thousands of Germans suffered
and died for the sake of the Reich but as far as I know there is no
public nostalgia for Nazi imagery. It would be unrealistic, this late
in the game, to remove all references to the Confederacy from the
South. For any African American person with a knowledge of history
though it must be like if I had to contend with living at the
intersection of Goebbels Street and Himmler Avenue. Still, the
recent cry to eliminate the flag of the Confederacy seems an
insultingly small gesture towards reparation. For the nine lives lost
we'll finally get around to removing a symbol of hatred we've
displayed for over a century too long.

Obama
had to do some major back peddling with regard to his apt observation
about small town Americans,who “cling to guns or religion or
antipathy for people who aren't like them.” Many on the left
believed that the first African American president would be a giant
leap forward towards eradicating racism in America but in many ways I
believe the result has been the opposite, bringing white American
fears to a head and creating an impediment to more enlightened
attitudes about people of color and sane gun controls.

My
own single foray into the deep South included a visit to the Holly
Springs Mississippi Historical Museum. Our docent, a retired history
teacher, apologized that there was inadequate representation of the
black community. One exhibit had a hand written display card which
alluded to the equal rights movement but included the phrase “colored
people.” The top floor of the museum is dedicated to local
education and has local high school class pictures dating back to the
1920s. Class pictures from the white high school. A separate wall
has a couple of 1960s photos from the all black high school.

I
guess this is what's to be expected for the most part in the South
but it is surprising how pervasive racism still is, even where one
would least expect it. African American comedian W. Kamau Bell lives
in Berkeley. His wife, who is white, was sitting in a cafe with
three white girlfriends and a gaggle of small children. Bell arrived
and showed the group a book he had just purchased. A restaurant
employee assumed he was trying to sell something and told him to
“scram.”

Despite
the incessant shrill rhetoric of Christian wingnuts, the Pew Foundation polls
report that the number of Americans who identify as Christians has
markedly decreased. Perhaps this is in reaction to religion being
evoked repeatedly as a rationale for hatred and discrimination. Here
on the left coast many of my peers use the term “Christian” only
pejoratively and synonymously with narrow mindedness. In the wake of
Emmanuel AME slaughter, the survivors of the slain offered
forgiveness to the murderer and prayed for the redemption of his
soul. While membership is decreasing, Christianity remains our
nation's top banana religion. I hope the compassion and spirit of
the Gospel that imbue the grieving congregants of Emmanuel AME is an inspiration to adherents of all faiths and the faithless as well.

As
we are being reminded yet again of a chasm that should have closed
generations ago, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution
to affirm the right of marriage equality. The Christian right is
going full throttle strident about the prospect of gay weddings. But
generations from now it will be inconceivable that LGBT people had
ever been denied this right. However, in 2008 Obama said that he was
opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds. I suspect that Obama's
personal and religious beliefs were more moderate than this would
indicate but as recently as this, one supported equal marriage at the
risk of political suicide.

Why
has the cause of gay equality progressed in the country so much more
swiftly than racial equality? Because perhaps, for appearances, LGBT
people are different from the majority only in the bedroom. There is
of course a long history of hatred and persecution but discrimination
for reason of sexual orientation has never been as institutionalized
like discrimination against people of color. There are, to my
knowledge, no monuments honoring proponents of the enslavement of
gay people.

Even
given this remarkable triumph, I know too that while LGBT Americans
are at last free, like the rest of us, to fall in love and marry,
there still will be bullying and discrimination to contend with. It
may be heretical to say this but perhaps racial tensions will subside
when Obama completes his term. Unless of course Ben Carson wins in
which case we'll have way more than a racist backlash to worry about.

The
Supreme Court makes me feel, for the first time in a while, proud to
be an American. This sensitive, compassionate, and fair decision
gives me hope that common sense is not dead and perhaps, despite
setbacks we are indeed on the road to justice for all.

Friday, June 19, 2015

I've now had nearly a decade now of
fatherless Father's Days. I am surrounded at the workplace by my
father's meticulously hand printed, if often politically incorrect,
sheaths of film descriptions. I scan photos of him, handsome, in
natty garb. His physical and psychic resemblance to Joe Workplace is uncanny, and
unsettling at times. My dad loved having parties and playing
projectionist, carefully considering the crowd as he spliced films
together. He did show a cartoon at the nursery school where an
exploding cigar leaves Bugs Bunny sporting an Afro but generally he
aimed to please. My son, social like his grandpa, likes throwing
parties and painstakingly choosing appropriate music. Pops however
was addicted to hard work. That is where the similarities between my
father and my son diverge. The boy, I will add has indeed toiled
long hours these last weeks. Although not without complaint. Some
of his characteristics are inherited from his father.

While married to his second of three
wives my father was forced to participate in Sierra Club activities
and to camp. He hated this. I am not camper either. But even fifty
years after the fact he described with detail and passion the natural
beauty of his childhood home. Blackberry brambles and the ice blue
water and emerald shoreline of Lake Washington. I myself reminisce
about Jewish sleep away camp in the San Bernardino Mountains and the
intensity with which I anticipated to my annual three week session.
In hindsight, I was treated badly there, and the loyal friendships,
that the other campers cultivated, eluded me. Still, inevitably I
would cry when it was time to go home. Now that I spend so much time
tromping around in the great out of doors I see that while I was
socially isolated at camp, I took enormous pleasure, in the reprieve
from the smoggy furnace that was Van Nuys, basking in the cool pine
air. Dad and I eschewed anything outdoorsy that is strenuous or involves not
sleeping in a bed, but we both reveled in being outside.

My kids were able to spend time with my
dad and he regaled them with stories about his childhood which
emphasized the physical beauty of the Seattle terrain but also his
own resourcefulness and scrapiness. Once in a while and usually
inspired by an abundance of food, he would allude to the poverty that
his family suffered during the depression, particularly after my
paternal grandfather took his own life. Except I guess for some
high falutin' intellectuals, the Greatest Generation didn't have the
luxury of hashing through childhood trauma and adversity as they
segwayed from the Depression to the Second World War. Not that I
necessarily do anything about it, I am aware of the potential that
childhood miseries have to impact my adult life. There is still
“baggage” but for the most part I've headed in the direction of
getting over it. While I have a glimmer, I'll never get the full
picture of what formed and shaped my dad. He worked tirelessly at
business. Overcoming poverty was a stronger motivator than healing
childhood wounds. Today, it is inconceivable that a ten year old
child whose father had committed suicide would not receive any sort
of psychological support.

Sometimes my kids recall to me some
horrible thing I said or did that fomented a childhood trauma. I
never have any memory of said infraction. I do not doubt the
children's veracity but am suspicious about their sense of context.
My father had no filter and in his stream of consciousness musings. He told me a long yarn about trying to shoot a "blue movie" and hiring a prostitute to pleasure herself for the camera. He
said to me things like, “I should never have had children,” and
“A man's wife (I forget whether he was referring to #2 or #3)
should always be more important than his children.” Perhaps there
is some context that has faded from my own memory but given what I
know about my dad's childhood I am aware he had no model for what a
father was supposed to be or do or say. I am sure that my kids might
address my own lapses some day in therapy but I like to at least
think I was more scrupulous about their emotional vulnerability than
either of my parents were about my own. I've been a broken record about
admitting that while my parents were clueless in many respects, both
had pretty miserable childhoods. Mom and Dad's labors facilitated for
me a childhood, which was, while far from perfect, way more
comfortable than either of them had enjoyed.

There's a big controversy now about
what's called the “free range parenting” which encourages greater
independence and describes pretty much how I grew up. Walking places.
Using public transportation. Bike riding. Not being under intense
parental scrutiny for every nanosecond of the day. An article about
Millennials in the work place describes the other end of the
spectrum. HR managers describe parents accompanying their kids for
job interviews and actually phoning to negotiate salary. Sometimes I
worry I'm a bit too hands on and straddle the line between showing
the kids how to do something and the more expedient, just doing it
myself.

For all of my dad's naive ineptitude,
he taught me how to run a business. I believe in giving employees
vacations and holidays but otherwise I pretty much do what he did.
While perhaps I've helicoptered my own kids way too much I see that
they've honed reasonable coping skills. I never really conveyed to
either of my parents how grateful I am. My own children are
gracious and express their appreciation effusively. It is bittersweet
to recognize that my kids treat me way better than I ever treated
either of my own parents.

Friday, June 12, 2015

During the two week period I spend
driving to New York and helping Spuds set up his Hudson Valley
residence, Joe Workforce's plan to spend the summer in Redlands falls
through. While I head east the young college graduate and
girlfriend-in-law drive several loads of their stuff west to my
recently renovated and uncluttered basement. No one is happy about
this.

I return home expecting to find my best
dishes growing penicillin, dead batteries in the television remote
and my newly reordered Tupperware cupboard in complete disarray. This
is not the case. The round Tupperware lids are still segregated from
the square ones. The house is tidy, although Himself's effort to
launder the sheets and make the bed isn't up to even the dog's
standards, everything else is in perfect order. I have not visited
the basement/post graduate dormitory but at least my own space is as
I left it.

College graduates moving back home is
loaded for everyone. Our house has a complicated history and despite
the fact that we are all different people than when we started out
here, the ghosts of old business can evoke bitterness and tension.
The graduate is defensive in the anticipation of a bossy neat freak
mom who herself has her hackles up with the expectation of an
indolent petulant teen commandeering the couch and TV when Judge
Judy's on. Although I've been home for less than a week, it seems
like we are all acting and reacting in a reasonable adult fashion and
thus far, the homefront vibe is quite pleasant.

After having micromanaged the
organization of Spuds' new household, upon my return this busybody
energy is transferred to Joe Workforce's search for employment. I
peruse Craigslist and entertainment companies that might offer entry
level positions. The boy however responds to every lead I forward to
him with, “I already applied for that Mom.” Girlfriend-in-law is
interviewed by a high end bakery and is offered a full time position
on the spot. She returns from her first day on the job as happy as
can be and laden with day old (but still divinely delicious)
pastries. I am so fucked.

Joe Workforce applies for a position as
sort of an assistant manager at a local caterer that also operates a
super swanky event venue right in the neighborhood. The owner is one
of those visionary Eastside mover and shaker types and has a number
of other ventures, including a cocktail bar in the works. Our boy
receives an immediate response and an interview is scheduled the
following day. He is cautiously optimistic after the meeting. They
are impressed that he has managed the campus coffee house and that he
is a native of the neighborhood. He is told to report over the
weekend for a trial run and to decide whether it is a good fit.

While girlfriend-in-law is offered a
position after only a single interview, it would be uncanny if the
boy has the same good fortune. He continues to send out resumes and
complete applications. There is a deep cupboard in his room that
would be a good location to store some of his gear except that
Himself has been stuffing it with old electronics that I guess he
thinks may some day be of use plus the empty cartons of computers
that were junked decades ago. I ask the boy to take advantage of
one of Himself's long days to clear the shit out and hide the
evidence at my office to send off for recycling, before Pops is any
the wiser. The boy is in the middle of the project when he
receives a phone call from the catering company he's applied to work
at. Apparently a dishwasher has gone AWOL and perhaps he can give
them a hand in an emergency, so work on the cupboard clean-out is
suspended as he rushes off to make a good impression.

Last summer Joe Workforce returned from
his doggy daycare position depressed and exhausted. Physical labor
is not exactly the boy's forte. Girlfriend-in-law and I are eating
dinner when he returns from dish duty. I see his car pull up and
expect he will skulk in spent and cranky. Instead, he is happy to
see dinner on the table and completely devours a meal that I'd
anticipated would provide leftovers sufficient for the next night.
He reports that he actually enjoyed using the big professional dish
washing machine while a wedding rehearsal was in progress and that
everyone was really nice. We are just finishing and he is about to
continue the cupboard cleaning ordeal, in order to complete the task
before Himself returns, when his phone rings. It is the manager of
the catering company. “Hey man. I know you live in the
neighborhood. My car won't start. Do you happen to have any jumper
cables?” The boy is out in a flash and gets the automobile
started. His efforts are appreciated. “I owe you a beer!” he is
promised. He should have responded, “I have beer at home. My mom
buys it. Give me a job!”

Nevertheless, he is scheduled for two
more days of work this weekend and as unlikely as it is that a
college graduate snag a decent job after his first job interview, we
are keeping our fingers crossed. The detritus from the cupboard is
still evident when Himself returns from work earlier than we'd
expected. He is grudgingly accepting that the outdated electronics
be hauled off for recycling. What upsets him however is that the
pure trash that has been generated will fill the receptacle. He will
often pronounce that the garbage can is full, like an injunction that
we are not to generate any more refuse. Don't use up the last of the
milk because with overflowing trashcans we are unable to dispose of
the carton. It is unacceptable to hold a couple bags of trash in the
driveway until the next garbage pick up but it's fine to leave a huge
cupboard filled with antiquated electronics and decaying cardboard
boxes for two decades. Still, as our 24th anniversary
looms I admit that still, his good qualities far outweigh the weird.
It's just that the quirks are so eccentric and inexplicable that
they're unlimited comic fodder.

I return from a pretty exhausting
journey expecting household disruption. Who knows, things might
still blow up but at the moment, the kids are alright, the cupboard
is clean and eventually we'll get caught up with the garbage men.
The third season of Orange is the New Black is out. The challah's in
the oven. Girlfriend-in-law is off today so the pastries I polished
off won't be replenished before my next Weight Watchers meeting. Joe
Workforce is working a trial shift. Himself is reading a book and
grumbling about the accretion of trash. The new normal and the old.
Perhaps.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

I find myself in a Time's Square coffee
shop with a line out the door. And the people are waiting “on line”
and not “in line.” Plus, the mayonnaise here is “Hellman's.”
Not that they have it at the coffee shop but I always notice at the
supermarket. We are staying in a thimble sized hotel room and Spuds
asks me to vacate so he can catch up on some sleep. I, on the other
hand, wake up early, no matter when I go to bed or what time zone I'm
in.

I set out nearly two weeks ago. The
first day I reach Flagstaff in the early evening, unfit to drive any
further. Unfortunately, hotel prices are inflated about 300% on the
Sunday evening of a holiday weekend and I end in the most squalid
place I've ever stayed. The next day I press on to Albuquerque where
I crash a family dinner with my friend Rachel and enjoy meeting her
mom, brother and sons. What tickles me the most is that the father
of her sons remarried and his second wife is a beloved stepmother.
That marriage ended also but Rachel and her ex-husband's
ex-wife/kid's stepmother are close and she is another member of the
family. After experiencing a few acrimonious incidents involving
stepparents and complicated family configurations this makes me
happy.

The drive from Albuquerque to Dodge
City Kansas is beautiful. The roads are empty as I cruise through
tiny towns, all with their water towers and historic main streets. I
try to visit an historic house before I hit the road but it is closed
so my only memories of Dodge are a generic motel and a lousy Mexican
restaurant at the end of a bedraggled shopping mall.

My next stop is Kansas City to spend
two days with my old friend Bill who was transferred there from L.A.
for work over twenty years ago. Bill lives in a striking blue
modernist condominium smack in the middle of blocks and blocks of
perfectly preserved mansions. It rains intermittently but spring has
definitely sprung and the stately city bursts with greenery and
near-lurid flowers. We dine alfresco in a neighborhood cafe and the
next night at a clubby hotel restaurant with a singer who does a
dead-on (as good as David Sedaris') imitation of Billie Holiday.
Bill is an aficionado of popular vocals and we listen to a number of
his favorite popular singers in his perfectly appointed condo. He
plays a CD of rare recordings of Black singers performing Jewish
songs including Lady Day's rendition of My Yiddishe Momma. I confess
that a little of this goes quite a long way.

We visit the Nelson-Adkins. I am
non-plussed by an, excruciating with detail, exhibit glorifying
Spanish chef Ferran Andria but enjoy a showcase of American Folk art.
We walk through a plate glass labyrinth, notably treacherous but
less fearsome for us as the panels are spotted with rain. The
permanent collection is impressive, particularly with the work of
native son Thomas Hart Benton. We are intrigued by a large group of
school girls. All are wearing mid-calf length plaid skirts and
ballet slipper type shoes. I wonder what kind of a school would
eschew as too provocative a shoe with a heel. Even the chaperones
wear longish dresses and flat shoes. We try to read the emblem on
the girls' blazers to figure out the school but are unable to do so
at the risk of appearing pervy.

We visit the Thomas Hart Benton home
and studio which is left marvelously intact. The dumb-ish college
aged guide talks mostly about herself but we still get a good feel
for the place, homey and almost militantly un-grandiose and smack dab
in the middle of a meticulously groomed old residential area.

I leave Kansas City and drive drive
drive. I manage to get through two enormous audio-novels: The
Gold Finch and The Confederacy of Dunces before hitting
Annandale. I am nervous driving a ten year old Corolla three
thousand miles but the little car is spunky and reliable. I land
someplace in Ohio at a cheap motel filled with skeet shooters and set
off early the next morning and make it through Pennsylvania to the
Taconic Parkway and up through the Hudson Valley. Spuds and I stay
at the little Red Hook cottage filled with ephemera and antiques that
we usually rent. Spuds has been couch surfing for two weeks and
appreciates a clean bed and some meals by mom. He works full time
the day the house he is renting becomes available so I make a number
of trips to Kingston to acquire provisions.

Kingston is the original capital of New
York state and there is a charming historic section but my activities
are confined to a strip of chain stores on the outskirts of town. My
days are filled with The Dollar Store, Builder's Emporium, Goodwill,
Target and I confess, for the first time in my life, the politically
incorrect Walmart. Setting up Spuds' first household is a daunting
proposition and I am enticed by the low prices. Chances are I will
never shop there again, but my God, stuff is cheap. I will note that
the corporation did recently increase wages and that I very much
enjoyed their nice art museum in Arkansas. While Spuds is working I
set up his kitchen and then when he is off, we make another trip to
Kingston to visit a U-Haul storage space and miraculously we are able
to fit the entire contents into the little Toyota, thus avoiding yet
another journey to the edge of Kingston. I notice that one of the
storage spaces is double locked and there is a note that says, “Due
to delinquent rental on this unit you no longer have access to it,”
which makes me feel embarrassed about the things I fret about.

Traveling from drought stricken
California through quite a bit of rain is refreshing at first. By
the time I reach the Hudson Valley and after three days of shopping
and moving in pouring rain I am sick to death of the stuff. My final
day in Annandale is clear and blue however and I meander through
Poet's Walk, one of the most beautiful paths along the Hudson before
dashing off through another trip to Kingston.

Spuds, with two good friends, has
rented a large old house in the village of Tivoli. The landlady is a
local mover and shaker and herself lives in a nineteenth century
church which she has painstakingly and sparing no expense converted
to her private residence. One of her business endeavors is to rent
half a dozen or so houses to Bard students. The rent seems
incredibly high to me but after pricing other local possibilities
(including a three bedroom property that is inhabited by Bard
students, each of whom pay $3000 a month!) it's in the average range.
The house is serviceable. Not filthy but a far cry from pristine.
The landlady brags to me that it comes with some furniture. This is
true. There are two threadbare couches that emit a pungent aroma, a
beat up dresser—drawers sprinkled with marijuana dregs, a broken
mirror and a particle board desk. With every step through the house
I envision the landlady squawking at her carpenter, “Do it as cheap
as you can!” She's cornered the market, apparently, on vinyl.
Window dressings. Floors. Panelling. Counters. The kids say she
drives around the town a lot inspecting her holdings. The zealous
cheapness raises my hackles but when I observe the move- in process,
replete with giant trash bags of who knows what left for days in the
middle of the living room, I get it.

God it seems has punished me for my
slovenly early years. I drove my mother insane. I thought she was
neurotic and had fucked up priorities. She thought I was a pig. And
during the time she was subsidizing me, it broke her heart that I was
so careless with things that the sweat of her labor provided,

Spuds and his roommates are nice kids.
Actually, I was impressed that when we opened Spuds' storage vaults,
his possessions were packed and categorized neatly. I suspect he
will be the tidiest of the three but I am also relatively certain
that by the time boys are done with it, the house will be quite
thrashed. And while the landlady is indeed raking in a bundle, her
cheapo décor choices are truly the most practical.

Spuds is set up now with an organized
kitchen and a tidy bedroom. That done, we escape for a few days in
Manhattan. The week has been tough on both of us. Our big treat for
the weekend is some theater tickets. At the last minute I switch our
Brooklyn reservation to a hotel in Times Square. I have received two
e-mail reminders from the Circle on the Square Theater that there
will be absolutely no late seating for Fun Home. When we miss the
train from Rhinebeck to Manhattan, despite my abhorrence of the Time
Square area I realize this is a prescient decision. We arrive at
Penn Station at the height of rush hour and know that the fastest way
to travel the half mile to the hotel is on foot, and despite my
embarrassingly heavy suitcase, we set out. I have a real JAP thing
about walking around city streets toting luggage.

When we first visited Manhattan about
five years ago, Spuds was immediately smitten and it seemed New York
City was his destiny. Now, leaving the pastoral Hudson Valley and
stepping of a train in Penn Station we both realize that Manhattan
has lost some magic. For long established residents, ensconced in
rent controlled neighborhoods I'm sure it fine and the cultural and
gustatory offerings are unparalleled. But dragging luggage over
pedestrian thick sidewalks, festering bags of garbage stacked high,
every driver on the horn and having seen here pretty much what I want
to see, I suspect now that unless there's an extraordinary play or
art exhibit I probably won't visit Manhattan just for the sake of
visiting Manhattan. After having grown up in L.A. and spending two
years in the Hudson Valley, Spuds is all over the fantasy of settling
in the Big Apple.

When we arrive at the hotel there has
been some confusion about the booking and simultaneously, we both
lose it and I find myself close to tears. We are cutting it close
for the theater curtain so we accept the not-as-described tiny room.
Spuds, bless his heart, despite having had a really rough couple of
weeks, returns to normalcy first and actually, brings things back to
perspective, puts his arm around me and talks me down from my brittle
strident place.

Five minutes into Fun Home, the musical
based on Alison Bechdel's graphic novel, I am back in love with New
York. It's a terrific theater-in-the-round production. The songs
are beautiful and poignant and the show never crosses into schmaltzy
territory.

The next morning we make our usual
Eastside food rounds with lunch at Russ and Daughters and stops at
Economy Candy and Yonah Schimmel knishes. Despite this we are hungry
when it's time for an early dinner with our friend Rosemary at the
hip and hoppin' Standard Hotel. As much as I grumble about being
crammed onto a muggy subway at rush hour, having consumed raw onion,
struggling to breathe only through my nose (not that any of the other
passengers are as considerate) I can't be too hard on a city with
museums that stay open until 10 p.m.

We start on the eight floor of Renzo
Piano's spectacular new Whitney Museum on the High Line. The
inaugural exhibit for the opening is American Is Hard to See which
showcases the permanent collection both chronologically and
thematically. We descend each floor to a more recent era via outdoor
balcony stairs with a breathtaking view of the New York skyline,
growing darker as we move from the late nineteenth century down to
works created in the last few years. We go our separate ways on each
floor, my philistine taste gravitating toward the more
representational. Both of us pull the other over once in a while to
show a favorite work. Spuds understands why I like what I like and
it is astonishing that my youngest, can so eloquently express why he
likes what he likes.

Today,
we see The Curious Episode of the Dog in the Night, which I love so
much I saw in London twice. Tomorrow Spuds returns to Annandale.
There are clean sheets on his little bed and the kitchen stocked with
basic needs. He has wheels. His swell roommates will return and
they'll figure out about living on their own. I fly home on Monday,
wistful but holding in my mind's eye the competent compassionate
person I leave here in New York.